The Lunatic Fringe: A Novel Wherein Theodore Roosevelt Meets the Pink Angel Read online

  The only way to get a word in was to interrupt. “You’ll be gettin’ him upstairs, then?”

  “What? Oh, of course, Dennis. Now where was I? Oh, yes. When Mr. Sturdevant was alive, he told me, ‘Esther, if I die first’—of course I never thought he would, Dennis—”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Muldoon said, “if you wouldn’t be callin’ me Dennis while I’m wearin’ me uniform.”

  Mrs. Sturdevant looked at him with reproach. “Dennis, you know I never see you when you’re not wearing your uniform.” She leaned across Mr. Harvey to give Muldoon a sly nudge in the ribs. “And you cut a fine figure in it, too. I’ll bet you’re a devil with the little girls.”

  Muldoon reddened. Something about him seemed to make folks all too ready to presume on his dignity as an Officer of the Law. The fact that Mrs. Sturdevant’s surmise had been largely true just made matters worse.

  It was best to change the subject. “Try to keep Mr. Harvey from leavin’ the buildin’ tomorrow, ma’am. It’s me day off, and the relief might not be as understandin’ of the poor man’s affliction as I am if he should happen to be caught by one of the raidin’ parties.”

  Muldoon was happy whenever he got a Sunday off. It gave him a chance to spend some time with his sisters, and it spared him the ordeal of closing saloons. Ever since Roosevelt had been named President of the Police Commission last year, things had been done completely by the book, and no liquor on Sunday was definitely in the book. The controversy over strict enforcement had kept the city in an uproar for over a year now, and Muldoon was tired of it. He took his work seriously, and when duty demanded it, he could close an ale shop with the best of them, but it pained his soul to stop men from having a good time.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Mrs. Sturdevant promised. She bent over, grasped Mr. Harvey under the arms, and lifted him with no effort at all. The little man murmured something.

  Mrs. Sturdevant looked grim. “This may be a bad night; sometimes he sees ghosts. Well, I’m baking bread tonight, so I’ll hear him yell if he does. Goodnight, Dennis.”

  Officer Muldoon fluttered his moustache with a sigh of resignation. “Goodnight, Mrs. Sturdevant,” he said. He turned and walked down the stoop.

  For all it was a hot, sticky night, and his helmet was starting to feel heavy on his head, and the high collar of his stiff wool tunic was chafing his neck, Muldoon felt good as he walked his beat through the friendly, lower middle-class neighborhood. He lived in a similar one a few blocks to the south and east. He felt at home in both.

  Unlike those in some places a man with just one year’s experience might be assigned, the citizens here were respectable enough to be easy to tell from the hoodlums. Muldoon’s duty consisted mostly of preventing loitering and hooky-playing, and keeping an eye on the shops that fronted the street on the ground floor of some of the buildings.

  Muldoon was a contented man. He still counted as holy that day fourteen years ago when Ma and Pa and the five little Muldoons (including ten-year-old Dennis Patrick Francis-Xavier Muldoon, second oldest) had landed in America. They’d been processed at Castle Garden, a converted fort at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Of course, immigrants came in by way of the new center on Ellis Island nowadays, but Muldoon thought that was a shame. You’d think a nation of immigrants like this one would have more of a sense of tradition.

  Muldoon had loved America ever since that first day, when they’d turned him loose to discover it. That was how he thought of it. Though he’d never been west of Newark, Muldoon had the heart of an explorer. The idea of a whole big America stretching endlessly to the west was exciting enough, let alone the fact that it was filled up with Red Indians and snow-capped mountains and buffalo. Muldoon had never actually seen any of these things (he’d had to work overtime the last time Buffalo Bill’s show had been in town) but he was still young. He’d get to them. In the meantime, New York was enough.

  In fact (though if his mother had lived to know he felt this way she’d have whaled the living bejesus out of him), Muldoon didn’t care if he ever saw Ireland again. Sometimes he thought he hadn’t been paying attention while he was living there. He didn’t remember the Auld Sod as a little bit of God’s own heaven dropped into a grateful sea, or anything close to that. To him, Ireland had been peat bogs, and no shoes in winter, and a thatched roof that leaked, and not enough to eat. Worst of all had been the mind-numbing boredom and frustration of trying to get a crop from land that wasn’t interested.

  America (or New York—to Muldoon the terms were practically synonymous) was a wonderland of unimaginable excitement. Gaslight, and now, this new-fangled electric stuff. Bicycles. Nickelodeons. Telephones. Good Lord, telephones. Be heard in Boston—all the way to Chicago now—without yelling. In Ireland, you couldn’t even get that far away from someone, let alone talk to him once you did. His sister Brigid, next oldest to him, had an important job as an Operator for Mr. Bell’s telephone company.

  And the people. Every boat, it seemed, brought a new sort of people, with strange names and exotic ways to them. Muldoon’s previous beat had been by the docks, and one thing he’d decided was that God didn’t make any people but he’d sprinkle some beautiful girls among them. And he’d put that theory to a stiffer test than just watching folks get off boats.

  He’d even kept some company with a Chinese girl, and enjoyed it, too, until her father had come at him with a big sharp thing when he found out Muldoon had taken Blue Jade to Coney Island. Come to find out, Chinamen were very particular about who got to see their daughters’ feet. New York was very educational.

  Muldoon had learned to read since he’d arrived in New York, and the years he’d struggled on to graduate high school had made him very good at it, if he said so himself. He read as many newspapers as he could lay his hands on, and he was addicted to Ned Buntline’s stories about the adventures of Buffalo Bill.

  If this hadn’t been Saturday, with the stores all closed since noon, Muldoon would have liked to step into Listerdale’s Literary Emporium down near the end of the block and borrow a tale of the Wild West. He could do with a little excitement.

  It was fully night now. There was a sliver of moon, but all the light worth anything came from the flames of the street lamps. Muldoon made the adjustment from looking to listening automatically, locking into the sounds of the city on Saturday night—horses’ hooves, saloon singing, couples talking low to each other as they walked out.

  Muldoon was twirling his nightstick and whistling while he walked. That was one advantage of night duty—it gave him something to do with his hands. The daystick was a short truncheon totally useless for twirling, or anything else to Muldoon’s way of thinking. If you had to biff somebody, you had to biff him just as hard in the daytime as in the night. You might as well have the proper tool for it.

  Two doors from the corner, Muldoon heard a clicking noise from inside Listerdale’s. It was a quiet sound, drowned out momentarily by an Italian woman calling for her child to come home so she could whip him. It didn’t sound like much of an inducement. When the yelling stopped, Muldoon still heard the clicking.

  It was beyond him why anyone would want to rob Listerdale, unless it was someone very much behind in his reading. The Emporium had only been open a few weeks, and the steps to the oak-and-glass door were in no danger of being worn out by the feet of eager customers.

  Still, Muldoon thought, go figure a criminal. The matter was simple. He had his duty. There never had been a burglary on his beat since he’d come there, and he wasn’t going to let the buggers get into the habit.

  Muldoon drew his revolver, then ran through the alley to the back of the building. He stopped to light his dark-lantern, then edged along the wall to Listerdale’s back entrance.

  The door wasn’t locked. Muldoon inched it open, wincing with every creak it made. He entered, ducking so his helmet wouldn’t knock the top of the door jamb. He heard the rustling noise again. It seemed to stop short, as though whoever had been m
aking it had become aware of Muldoon’s presence.

  Muldoon held the lantern as far to his left as he could, and pointed it where he guessed the noise had come from. He slid back the lens cover with his thumb.

  “Stop in the name of the Law!” Muldoon barked. It was the first time he’d had a chance to say that, and he felt a bit of pleasure at the note of command he heard in his voice.

  The beam of light, meanwhile, had illuminated the left side of a man. The figure, or half figure, actually, had its arm raised high, holding a walking stick as if for striking. Behind him Muldoon could see the open safe, with just a few dollars and a piece of yellow paper visible inside it.

  Muldoon moved the lantern to reveal the surprised and somewhat desperate face of Hiram Listerdale.

  Muldoon was surprised, too. He let fly a Gaelic oath his father used to use, of which Muldoon only suspected the meaning. He let out all his pent-up breath in one gust of impatience. “And what are you doin’ battin’ around in the dark like a burglar in your own blasted establishment?” he demanded.

  Listerdale let his own breath go. “Officer Muldoon?”

  “Who’d you be expectin’ to come bustin’ in in the name of the Law? Nick Carter?”

  Listerdale started to laugh. For all he looked like a parson, Listerdale was as fond of a good laugh as any man Muldoon knew. Sometimes, he’d find his laugh in things Muldoon could see no humor at all in, but this time the policeman laughed right along with him. “I heard the clickin’,” Muldoon said. “I knew someone was at the sale.”

  “Well,” Listerdale said at last, “I’d better sit down and catch my breath. I thought you were some thief out to rob me.”

  “You’re just lucky I didn’t come in shootin’,” Muldoon told him.

  “So are you. If you’d shot me, you’d have to walk all the way to Fifth Avenue for your Wild West Tales.” Listerdale rose and closed the safe, then struck a match to light the gas.

  Hiram Listerdale was in his late thirties, but he looked to be forty-five or more. He was a man of good height, but he was sparely built, with a schoolmaster’s stoop to his posture. In fact, he’d told Muldoon he’d been a schoolmaster before a small windfall had enabled him to move to the city and open the Emporium. Listerdale’s brow was very smooth and high. It made him look intellectual (which he was) but it also added to the illusion of greater age. He wore a set of lush, brown side-whiskers, which tended to make his narrow face look pinched when he wasn’t smiling.

  “Well,” Muldoon asked after a while, “What were you doin’ here at this time of night?”

  “What do you expect of me, Muldoon? I’m just a poor merchant, after all. I sell books. Nothing to steal here but the Truth, and I don’t believe thieves are particularly interested in that commodity.”

  “Never mind what I expected,” Muldoon said. “Instead of raggin’ me, you should be draftin’ a note to the Police Board, thankin’ them for the Force’s bein’ ever vigilant, even if the public insist on runnin’ around in the dark like a pack of damn fools.”

  Listerdale’s smile became apologetic. “You’re right, Muldoon. The explanation is simple. I usually devote Saturday after closing to straightening out the shop—wash the floor and so forth—but today, for the first time, business during the week preceding was so brisk—”

  “Congratulations,” Muldoon said, sincerely.

  Listerdale had a twinkle in his eye. “Thank you. I believe I will find unexpected benefits in this venture. At any rate, in the case of this establishment, at least, prosperity leads to disarray, and I was busy setting things in order until just a few minutes ago. I had turned out the light, and was preparing to go to my rooms upstairs, when I remembered I had neglected to take pocket money for myself. Since there was sufficient light from the street lamps to find my way across the shop and to open the safe, I spared myself the trouble of lighting the gas again.”

  Muldoon nodded. “Makes sense.” He rose. “Ah, well, I’m glad it’s just a misunderstandin’ then.”

  The officer was looking carefully at Listerdale’s shelves and tables. He saw the day’s best sellers, among them Coin’s Financial School, which had had a revival due to the election, and a novel called The Red Badge of Courage, by someone named Stephen Crane. Muldoon had read part of it. He thought it was a shame to waste such a good Western title on a mere war story.

  “A misunderstanding,” the bookseller echoed. “And I appreciate your zeal, Muldoon, truly—”

  Listerdale sold magazines and fine stationery as well as books. Muldoon looked over the racks, and his face lit up. “I—ah—can’t help noticin’ you’ve still got the August Lippincott’s Magazine.” The issue featured “The Great K&A Robbery,” a story of a daring train hold-up out West. “Yes, that’s the last copy.”

  “Well ... Would I be puttin’ you out if I were to sort of borrow it? Sometimes,” Muldoon went on, warming to his subject, “in between episodes of riskin’ life and limb on behalf of an indifferent public, you might say, there are lonely, dreary, periods of waitin’ that try even the most hardened—”

  “Please, Muldoon, you’ll break my heart.” Listerdale chuckled. “Take it, by all means. And I see now how the variety stage has sadly maligned our men in blue. Your interests, Muldoon, seem to embrace more than the occasional apple from the Italian’s pushcart.”

  “That’s true,” Muldoon agreed. “And then, there’s no returnin’ a borrowed apple, either. But speakin’ of the variety stage, did you get to see the kinetoscope?”

  “The what?”

  “A movin’ picture. Mr. Edison invented it. I was assigned to traffic back in April when Koster and Bials was showin’ one. Took a peek inside. You’d think some Bolshevik had gone flingin’ a bomb in the place. Had a kinetoscope of a locomotive steamin’ straight at you.”

  “Amazing.”

  “It was a daisy. That thing hasn’t got much of a future, if you’re askin’ me—too unsettlin’. Even though I knew it was some kind of a trick, when I saw that train roarin’ at me, I ducked for me life. And you should have heard the women screamin’ ...”

  Just then, they did hear a woman screaming, a series of shrieks from out in the street that would have frightened a banshee.

  “Help! Murder! Police!”

  Muldoon called a hurried thanks to Listerdale for the magazine, dashed to the front of the store, and plunged into the street.

  II.

  It was Mrs. Sturdevant who was doing the yelling. The normally placid landlady was standing in front of her tenement with her hands cupped around her mouth, like a man in a crowded saloon calling for another beer.

  Muldoon ran up to her. She grabbed him by the sleeve, and started to drag him into the building.

  This was a bad night for Muldoon’s dignity. He pulled his arm free. “I’m comin’, ain’t I? What’s goin’ on?”

  Mrs. Sturdevant was so wrought up she had to stop and grab his sleeve again before she could tell him. “It’s Mr. Harvey!” she blurted, near tears. “The poor soul has done himself in.” She shook her head, and the tears came loose and rolled down her cheeks. “That’s what happens when a body lives all alone!”

  “Now, don’t go blubberin’ at me!” Muldoon commanded. “Where is he?”

  “In his room, where I left him before. I—sniff—I went back upstairs to see if the poor little man was all right, and I smelled gas something awful.”

  Her tone fell to a hush. “This is the anniversary of the day his wife died, you know, and now he’s blown out the gas. And he’s locked his door, as well.”

  Muldoon pushed past her, and raced up the stairs to Mr. Harvey’s room on the second floor. The air was heavy with coal-gas, and the door wouldn’t budge.

  “Bring me the pass-key!” Muldoon yelled to the landlady, who was puffing up the stairs.

  “There hasn’t been a pass-key since eighty-eight,” she told him. “I lost it in the blizzard. Never had call to get another one.”

  Muldoon sighed, the
n coughed as he drew in a lungful of gas. It was too bad, but Mrs. Sturdevant was going to be out the cost of a new door. He backed across the hallway, then rushed forward, throwing a meaty shoulder against the door to Harvey’s flat. This building had been put together by someone who knew what he was about; Muldoon might as well have thrown a snowball. After three more attempts, his shoulder was numb, but the door was finally showing signs of wear. Twice more, and it burst inward, sending Muldoon staggering into the room.

  About a half second later, Mr. Harvey wobbled in from the bedroom, dressed in his nightshirt, waving an empty whiskey bottle and swearing no damn ghost was going to get him.

  Muldoon took the bottle away and swore under his breath, while Mrs. Sturdevant came forward to try to calm the old soak down. The only gas in the room was what was now leaking in from the hall. Muldoon checked the wall jet—it was closed tight.

  The patrolman went back into the hall. The smell was as strong as ever. It was so pervasive, Muldoon found it difficult to tell where it was coming from. He wasn’t a blasted bloodhound, after all.

  He deduced the answer. Muldoon knew his beat. This building had three flats to a floor, and Muldoon knew that the couple who rented the one fronting the street were away to a cottage in Brooklyn for the summer. The answer, therefore, was probably a simple gas leak, unless the new fellow, Randall, or Crandall or whatever his name was, was trying to do himself in. He’d knock on the fellow’s door and make sure, then go tell Mrs. Sturdevant she should call in the gas company next time, instead of distracting a public servant with her damned overheated, melodramatic, female imagination.

  But neither knocking nor shouting could raise an answer from the fellow’s apartment. Muldoon rattled the doorknob and found it locked. That made two locked doors. Muldoon wondered what New York was coming to, if neighbors didn’t feel they could trust each other anymore.